I recently wrote a Javascript library to show a floating menu that works cross browser and displays the menu based on a set of co-ordinates that you pass it.

The floating menu is just an absolute div that is hidden from view.

The library is smart in the sense that it determines where best to display the menu. It works out where you have scrolled to on the page and figures out if there is space at the top or bottom and to the left or right of where ever your target co-ordinates are.

I have come across some neat (if not mind blowing) tricks with JavaScript recently.

Firstly, I needed JavaScript code that copied PHP’s urlencode().
This function returns an encoded string where all non-alphanumeric characters except – _ . are replaced with a percent (%) sign followed by two hex digits and spaces encoded as plus (+) signs.

I was looking into flash’s local shared objects ( from here on LSO’s ) recently as a method of data persistence on a clients browser as the plain old HTTP cookie has its limitations.

LSO’s are like cookies and are sometimes referred to flash cookies but there are 2 main differences between them. A normal HTTP cookie can store around 4k of data, while the flash cookie can store up to 100k. Also a normal cookie is pretty easy to remove while removing a flash cookie is far more convoluted, which is a matter of some contention.Continue reading “JavaScript, ExternalInterface, Flash and Local Shared Objects”→